Remember when we believed that smoking cleared the lungs and lobotomies were a legitimate treatment for a big personality? Ah, the past. That quaint, confused place where the men in charge made terrible decisions with absolute confidence.
Alas, in 2026 on the first Tuesday in November, a few million Aussies still whop out a fascinator or a suit and pretend that stopping a nation for a three-minute horse race is a charming tradition. IMO, the Melbourne Cup is a rubbish relic, especially to anyone outside of Melbs, a sport almost entirely exclusive to rich white people. It’s time to put it out to pasture, don’t you think?
The Cup is simply a booze and gambling orgy served adjacent to an exclusive sport that did a whack marketing job in the eighties. My family arrived in Australia in 1981 and I couldn’t believe my eyes when a TV was wheeled into my year 2 classroom to watch a horse race after the kids organised a quick sweepstakes. What was this sorcery?
Thirty years later as the CEO of an international aid charity I was invited to an exclusive women’s Melbourne Cup lunch and asked to give a speech after the entree. Never have I ever seen an audience less interested in changing the world than that one. They wanted betting slips not donor slips.
At the core of the Cup is one of Australia’s most costly social problems: gambling. Melbourne Cup Day is one glorious payday for the bookmaking industry and a financial disaster for everyday households. People who wouldn’t know a trifecta from a fucking tricycle fancy themselves as a racegoer, plunging their grocery budgets and rent money on a pony with a catchy name. It’s a cultural festival which preys on human impulsivity.
Gambling begins with toddlers and their screen-based learn-to-read programs which sound exactly like the pokies and ends up as a powerful addiction where the brain’s reward system releases dopamine even during losses, tricking the mind into feeling excitement and driving continued play. The biggest problem gamblers are men aged 18-24. This is the same social group most at risk of suicide.
Booze is classified as a Group 1 carcinogen causing cancer in every single part of the body it touches, yet remains the undisputed centerpiece of the entire spectacle. We pour millions into public health campaigns urging people to drink responsibly, even though we know that no amount of alcohol is safe, then on Cup Day it’s an all-you-can-consume festival of excess. I’m here to give it to you straight: you all look like gooses on the piss.
Things get even worse at home. Research consistently proves that sporting and high-stakes gambling events, including the Melbourne Cup, are linked to alarming spikes in domestic and family violence. When heavy drinking, emotional volatility and financial stress collide, the home becomes a very dangerous place. Women have had enough. We are utterly over it because it is women and children who pay the price for the tight relationship between sport, booze and betting.
Don’t get me started on the magnificent horses and the dangerous sport they are bred to compete in. The horses are treated like gold from the moment they are born. This is a dangerous sport conducted at very high speed. Nup to the Cup launched in 2010 asking people to opt out of horse racing, gambling and the Melbourne Cup altogether and it has gained enormous traction since then. I’m not the only one.
It’s time to call the Melbourne Cup what it is: an outdated hangover that causes harm. It kills beautiful horses for money, preys on problem gamblers and drinkers, and correlates with a terrifying rise in domestic violence. That’s a trifecta of societal tragedy right there and the payout is harm on all fronts.
If we can wise up and leave behind asbestos, lead paint and smoking on planes, surely we can grow up as a nation and find a healthier way to spend the first Tuesday in November.
Too harsh? I’m going horse riding on Melbourne Cup day in the park with a hot man with soft lips. What are you doin’?
Unpopular opinion: kick the Cup to the curb
If you have heard me speak you may have heard about the “party baby” who is now 21 and pictured here, works with the largest herd of horses in the southern hemisphere. Happy horses have space and friends and time off. Like happy humans.
Remember when we believed that smoking cleared the lungs and lobotomies were a legitimate treatment for a big personality? Ah, the past. That quaint, confused place where the men in charge made terrible decisions with absolute confidence.
Alas, in 2026 on the first Tuesday in November, a few million Aussies still whop out a fascinator or a suit and pretend that stopping a nation for a three-minute horse race is a charming tradition. IMO, the Melbourne Cup is a rubbish relic, especially to anyone outside of Melbs, a sport almost entirely exclusive to rich white people. It’s time to put it out to pasture, don’t you think?
The Cup is simply a booze and gambling orgy served adjacent to an exclusive sport that did a whack marketing job in the eighties. My family arrived in Australia in 1981 and I couldn’t believe my eyes when a TV was wheeled into my year 2 classroom to watch a horse race after the kids organised a quick sweepstakes. What was this sorcery?
Thirty years later as the CEO of an international aid charity I was invited to an exclusive women’s Melbourne Cup lunch and asked to give a speech after the entree. Never have I ever seen an audience less interested in changing the world than that one. They wanted betting slips not donor slips.
At the core of the Cup is one of Australia’s most costly social problems: gambling. Melbourne Cup Day is one glorious payday for the bookmaking industry and a financial disaster for everyday households. People who wouldn’t know a trifecta from a fucking tricycle fancy themselves as a racegoer, plunging their grocery budgets and rent money on a pony with a catchy name. It’s a cultural festival which preys on human impulsivity.
Gambling begins with toddlers and their screen-based learn-to-read programs which sound exactly like the pokies and ends up as a powerful addiction where the brain’s reward system releases dopamine even during losses, tricking the mind into feeling excitement and driving continued play. The biggest problem gamblers are men aged 18-24. This is the same social group most at risk of suicide.
Booze is classified as a Group 1 carcinogen causing cancer in every single part of the body it touches, yet remains the undisputed centerpiece of the entire spectacle. We pour millions into public health campaigns urging people to drink responsibly, even though we know that no amount of alcohol is safe, then on Cup Day it’s an all-you-can-consume festival of excess. I’m here to give it to you straight: you all look like gooses on the piss.
Things get even worse at home. Research consistently proves that sporting and high-stakes gambling events, including the Melbourne Cup, are linked to alarming spikes in domestic and family violence. When heavy drinking, emotional volatility and financial stress collide, the home becomes a very dangerous place. Women have had enough. We are utterly over it because it is women and children who pay the price for the tight relationship between sport, booze and betting.
Don’t get me started on the magnificent horses and the dangerous sport they are bred to compete in. The horses are treated like gold from the moment they are born. This is a dangerous sport conducted at very high speed. Nup to the Cup launched in 2010 asking people to opt out of horse racing, gambling and the Melbourne Cup altogether and it has gained enormous traction since then. I’m not the only one.
It’s time to call the Melbourne Cup what it is: an outdated hangover that causes harm. It kills beautiful horses for money, preys on problem gamblers and drinkers, and correlates with a terrifying rise in domestic violence. That’s a trifecta of societal tragedy right there and the payout is harm on all fronts.
If we can wise up and leave behind asbestos, lead paint and smoking on planes, surely we can grow up as a nation and find a healthier way to spend the first Tuesday in November.
Too harsh? I’m going horse riding on Melbourne Cup day in the park with a hot man with soft lips. What are you doin’?
Who dis?
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